o speak to her the fragrance floated about me.

"Do you still remember me because of the blue-eyed collie?" I asked, for
it was all I could think of.

Her firm square chin was tilted a little upward, and as she smiled at
me, her thick black eyebrows were raised in the old childish expression
of charming archness. It was the face of an idea rather than the face of
a woman, and the power, the humour, the radiant energy in her look,
appeared to divide her, as by an immeasurable distance, from the pretty
girls of her own age among whom she stood. She seemed at once older and
younger than her companions--older by some deeper and sadder knowledge
of life, younger because of the peculiar buoyancy with which she moved
and spoke. As I looked at her mouth, very full, of an almost violent
red, and tremulous with expression, I remembered Miss Hatty's "delicate
bow" with an odd feeling of anger.

"It has been a long time, but I haven't forgotten you, Ben Starr," she
said.

"Do you remember the night of the storm and the cup of milk you wouldn't
drink?"

"How horrid I was! And the geranium you gave me?"

"And the churchyard and the red shoes and Samuel?"

"Poor Samuel. I can't have any dogs now. Aunt Mitty doesn't like them--"

Some one came up to speak to her, and while I bowed awkwardly and turned
away, I saw her gaze looking back at me from the roses and the
pink-shaded lamps. A touch on my arm brought the face of young George
between me and my ecstatic visions.

"I say, Ben, there's an awfully pretty girl over there I want you to
waltz with--Bessy Dandridge."

In spite of my protest he led me the next instant to a slim figure in
pink tarlatan, with a crown of azaleas, who sat in one corner between
two very stout ladies. As I approached, the stout ladies smiled at me
benignly, hiding suppressed yawns behind feather fans. Miss Dandridge
was, as George said, "awfully pretty," with large shallow eyes of pale
blue, an insipid mouth, and a shy little smile that looked as if she had
put it on with her crown of azaleas and would take it off again and lay
it away in her bureau drawer when the party was over.

"Get up and dance, dear," urged one of the stout ladies sleepily, "we
ought to have come earlier."

"The girls look very well," remarked the other, suddenly alert and
interested, "but I don't like this new fashion of wearing the hair.
Sally Mickleborough is handsome, though it's a pity she takes so much
after her fathe